New York stuff

The staircase is a wooden escalator in Macy's. Macy's is HUGE. Bigger than most malls.
Central park is big, too. Very well kept.
My overall impression of New York is, clean, big and friendly. It surprised me a bit that the people here are more fit in general than the rest of the nation. Maybe all the walking or the fact the food's expensive. Everyone dresses pretty nice too. Glad I got to see all this, but I won't be moving soon.

April Building Update

Parking area's all done. Since it's up against the rear property line, the law says there has to be a 6' fence to obscure the neighbor's view of the cars. Not that anyone has a house there, and if they did, a 6 foot fence wouldn't do much with the slope. I'm hoping it's 6' from my side, not the other side, as I used the height of the retaining wall for half of what was required. The downhill side is more that 24" high so a rail is required. Yesterday, the rare combination of wet ground and beautiful weather was conducive to some manual grading----forming the turn between the driveway and the parking. It'll just be gravel for now, maybe concrete later.
When I get back from New York I'll put in the temporary power. I have to dig a deep hole for a 24' pole to go in.
It was time to purchase the materials, too. Not because I'm ready to frame, but because lumber prices went up 22%! I got my order in just in time. It was quite a bit less than I thought and budgeted for---$18,576 for nearly everything I need to build. It gets delivered May 18. I'll put it in our home's driveway and just carry stuff across the street as I need.

Crazy weather

Last Sunday, the girls found a nice sunny spot to replenish some vitamin D on the roof of the pavilion. The next day it snowed. A lot. Then it all froze solid. It's nearly May for Pete's sake! I made it out the driveway for work just as the sun was coming up over the lake and decided to snap a picture---big mistake. The parking lot had a thick ice layer. I kept sliding away from the car. After removing shoes, socks gripped a little better. It was very scary driving back out to the highway.
A friend that bow hunts on our property at the cabin shot this turkey and gave it to us. Delicious. Full of omega-3's too, since they eat all the natural bugs and such... The wild birds are shaped a bit different so I had to cook it on its side....

4 types of people (from a dumb/busy)

I was talking to someone from the US Navy. He told me the navy divides people into 4 types. Each type has specific jobs you point them towards.
You have your smart busy people. Make them leaders. Give them roles where they can be held accountable, and need good situational awareness. 20% of the people fit this description (though 90% would put themselves here)
Smart lazy people have their place, too---put them in logistics. Plan out caravans, run supply warehouses. They are smart so will trend towards setting up efficient operations to make less work for themselves.
Dumb lazy people get to do guard duty, paint and clean, work in the mess hall. You need them; the challenge is getting them to a place where they realize it's less work to just do as you are told. You also need these people to fill uniforms.
Now, watch out. The Dumb, busy people cause the most problems and get people in trouble. The energy to do things, without the benefit of mental direction, combined with artillery, is not good. You have to keep a close eye and short leash on these guys. They are essential if you need someone to recover a live grenade behind enemy lines or for testing low lethality munitions. Actually in battle these are some of your most valuable assets. The real challenge is dealing with them during down time.

Perfect day

We both got over some inconvenient sicknesses, spent a healthy day getting things done about the house, and took the next day off to go for a bike ride. As soon as the kids were off to school we loaded up the tandem bike and headed down the hill.
We started at the Hotel Del Coronado (largest wooden structure by floor area in the world. "Some Like It Hot" was filmed there) It's the building waaay in the distance to the left of AM's head in the picture.
There's a very nice bike trail that heads down the 'Silver Strand', the sandbar that makes San Diego Bay a bay. The ocean side is used by Navy Seals and various amphibious watercraft. We kept spotting submarines breaching the surface. Further down is Arctic Tern habitat, then the State beach.
AnnaMarie had never been to Imperial Beach before. It's nice, kind of a hidden tucked away beach community. Although it nearly borders Mexico, the wetland habitat of the Tijuana River estuary keeps it from getting any border traffic. The contamination of the beach 6 months out of the year from the Tijuana River keeps the beach from ever becoming really popular. We rode as far south as possible on the U.S. Western seacoast, within less than a mile of Mexico.
Back North a few blocks is the Imperial Beach Pier. The restaurant (The Tin Fish) on the pier was very good and good prices.
We had a slight headwind riding down so looked forward to a boost on the return; unfortunately the wind shifted 180* and got strong...My pre-trip planning mileage was dead on---9 miles---except for the minor detail I thought it was 9 miles round trip instead of one way. AnnaMarie never complained and really pedalled hard on the return trip. At one point, riding past the base, there were 200 recruits on a double time march. My wife, likely twice their age, stood up to pedal at this point (Not sure if she knows how good she looks in her date jeans) but there were 400 eyes on her. In my opinion she did her part for her country.
Stopped at a farmer's market on the way home and still beat the school bus. Thanks to the recent change, there was plenty daylight time saved for me to get some good work done on the new place. Time with the kids in the evening followed by a really good night's sleep.
Perfect day

Building around El Nino

The lake's full just about to capacity, which is good...I've been delayed in building by rain and snow though. Twice now I've finished the concrete pour while the sleet started coming down, then scrambled to get it all covered up.
If you're like me and don't care to hear about aches and pains, skip this paragraph. My rotator cuffs (both sides, but more the right) have been giving me problems, especially at night. It was frustrating and scary---how'm I gonna build a house with arms that don't work? I decided to ignore it and try to mix 6,000 pounds of concrete and move heavy rocks anyway. Know what? Everything felt GREAT afterwards, much better than before.
The lower wall is all done. This upper wall is right on the property line. What doesn't show is the 'dead man', a concrete girder about 14" x 12" that joins the top of the lower wall with the bottom of the upper wall every 20'. They're covered by the gravel driveway. They'll keep either wall from bowing from the pressure of the hillside over time.
Most time is spent digging. Then build the forms, trying to re-use the lumber and screws as many times as possible. Then line everything with plastic---if you pour right on the soil, too much moisture is drawn from the concrete. Strip the forms. Lay a bed of concrete on the footing, start placing stones, backpour concrete against a temporary form on the backside to lock it all in. Later I'll pour an upper burb that ties everything together, which will have post holders. I have to put a fence on top of this wall since it's going to be parking right on the property line.

Happy St. Valentine's day

http://www.10news.com/news/22563047/detail.html

On a 4 day bender here at work...Day one, 380 pound guy fall from cliff into surf, at night. Day two, retired fireman passed out on Cowles Mountain. Today, this one first then an even more tragic call, not postable.
Busy is good, though

Typical Lauren...

OK. So, Lauren is our middle child. She's in seventh grade. She recently won the school spelling bee (including the eight graders!) but the biggest competition was a fellow seventh grader----Darren. Darren takes spelling bees seriously. (his Dad's the principal, too---a great guy) Darren asks for the word to be repeated, defined, used in a sentence---every time. Spelling bee tactics.
Darren was eliminated by the word 'straightforward'. He spelled it with a 'dash' between 'straight' and 'forward'.
So, Lauren's going on to the county spelling bee. A few days later she was in class writing an essay and got stuck on a word. She said, somewhat absentmindedly, "How do you spell....." When she saw Darren was the person in earshot, she quickly decided she wasn't about to give him the pleasure, so she just said "...Never mind" So Darren started spelling "N-E-V-E-R.." when Lauren blurted out "DASH!"
The class laughed, except for Darren who mustered up his best 'stink-eye' for Lauren. Didn't stop him from asking her to dance with him at the Valentine's dance today though

Horoscope

During my medic rotation where I'm taken from the copter to staff the ambulance (it's to keep current on things and really not a bad idea...Just a lot more work!) I had a patient ask me, on the way to the hospital, what my 'sign' was. She was a Gemini, she said, and her horoscope predicted a medical emergency...
I asked her whether she goes by the dates set over 2,000 years ago, or the actual sign she was born under?
Let me get this straight....The sky is divided into 12, 30 degree sections. (12 because there's usually 12 full moons in a year) Each of these sections of sky falls in the plane of the ecliptic where the sun, moon and planets transit. If you use your imagination, each of these zones has a group of stars that kind of resemble something that was around 2 millenia ago. So, when I was born, the sun shone through this group of stars, raining the attributes of that star formation down upon me. There are planets too. One is really bright, so it's given the attribute of 'beauty'. One is vaguely red, so looks a little like blood, so gives the attribute of 'war'. These planets wander in and out of 'my' constellation, so things about my life can be predicted by this.
Today's horoscope---"Good time for love affairs; you will be in great form, and look handsome. You will be full of energy, and take on the work of Hercules....All this from planets moving through a group of stars!
A few problems with this. First, the sun doesn't shine through the stars---they are very far away. Second, there has been precession over the last 2,000 years due to the earth's wobble, so you were most likely born under the constellation one before what you think you are; If you were born between Nov.29-Dec 17, you're actually born under the sign 'Ophiuchus'. So according to horoscope sites I'm a Taurus, though I was born 'under' Aries the ram. And what about comets? If a planet can move through and make me look handsome, how come a comet can pass through and it doesn't alter my horoscope one bit?
I tried to politely ask my patient some of these things. All she offered was, "I'd fully expect a Taurus to say something like that"

Sir James Clark Ross

You probably haven't heard his name before. He was an explorer. He explored the Arctic on four voyages under Admiral Parry; and later led his own expeditions into the Antarctic.
Ross was employed on the magnetic survey of Great Britain. He was also tasked with discovering the magnetic south pole, and discovered/named many features and bays in Antarctica. Ross ice shelf and the Ross Sea are among things he first identified (later named for him).




Ross was a fanatic recorder, recording tidal, astronomical, and meteorological observations. He sailed to The Isle Of The Dead not far from Point Arthur (Tasmania)with the purpose of providing a benchmark. These are excerpts from his journal, made in 1841..

"The fixing of solid and well secured marks for the purpose of showing the mean sea level of the ocean at a given epoch was suggested by Baron von Humboldt..." (Another traveller, and hero of mine)....
"My principal object in visiting Port Arthur was to afford a comparison of our standard barometer with that which had been employed for several years by Mr. Lempriere, (the Deputy Commissary General) and also to establish a permanent mark at the zero point, or general mean sea level as determined by the tidal observations which Mr. Lempriere had conducted with perseverance and exactness for some time; by which means any secular variation in the relative level of the land and sea, which is known to occur on some coasts, MIGHT AT ANY FUTURE PERIOD BE DETECTED, AND ITS AMOUNT DETERMINED."
Ross gave Lempriere laborers and specific instructions to cut this mark in the exact spot which his tidal observations indicated as the mean sea level of the ocean.
July 1st 1841 the mean sea level mark was made. Careful present day observations put mean sea level, over a century and a half later, more than 4 inches below Ross's mark.
Thanks for the effort, Mr. Ross, but you wasted your time. Science ain't based on keen observation anymore. When your ice shelf seasonally recedes, it's due to our industrial greed. If you ask your average Joe, they'll insist the oceans have significantly risen in spite of the benchmark you provided.

New Job!!

It's been a bit stressful here at SDFD of late. We're already 22 fire stations short in San Diego to meet NFPA standards, and now they're cutting back more. In the 23 years I've worked in Emergency Services in San Diego, there has always been overtime available.
Now they are putting a stop to overtime.
It's kid of foolish, really---they can cover three budgeted positions with two people. It costs a little in overtime, but saves a lot in eliminating a postion you'd have to pay more retirement/benefits/insurance for. All they see, though, is how much a fireman made---not how much time he was at work or the money he brings in from other agencies doing single resource work.
We never set up our finances to be dependent on the OT, but it would really affect our short and long term plans if the OT completely dried up. (It really won't completely dry up...I still teach downtown, and attend monthly Airops meetings, HazMat drills, Paramedic CE, Etc)
Still, AnnaMarie and I talked about it, prayed about it, developed fall back plans, decided to wait and see how things go.
Today I got a call from Washington D.C.....This position wouldn't really affect my current job, would mean more paid travel, and be a way to serve outside the small San Diego pond. There are still some hoops to jump through